By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN
DRYSDALE Clifton Springs Community Association has lost its bid to void a costs claim against it over a failed bid to stop a service station development at Drysdale.
Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) ordered the community association to pay $5500 in legal costs to Caltex franchisee Milemaker Petroleum by December.
Milemaker Petroleum had asked VCAT for $26,000 in legal costs. The company is building a service station at the junction of Jetty Rd and High St Drysdale.
Community association committee member Patrick Hughes said the group was not allowed to put its case at the costs hearing.
“Milemaker’s lawyers argued that the association’s application should be dismissed, as it had been submitted after the due date for such applications.
“The chair of the hearing agreed, dismissed the application and invited Milemaker to apply for legal costs.”
Mr Hughes said the association’s request for VCAT to rule out imposing costs received wide community support.
Local federal MPs Richard Marles and Sarah Henderson, state MP and Environment Minister Lisa Neville, councillor Rod Macdonald and community groups backed the association, he said.
Ms Neville wrote to VCAT with a warning that any costs order against the group “would act as a serious disincentive for any like community organisation involving itself in a local planning matter, to the possible detriment of the community and the planning outcome”.
An independent online petition gathered 349 signatures in support of the group.
Mr Hughes said the association would ask Milemaker to write off the $5500 as a gesture of goodwill to the community.
